Generating rich digital documents from limited instructional data

ABSTRACT

A method and system for generating a digital document on a receiving mobile device from limited data that is transmitted to the device is disclosed. A shortened form of Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is sent and expanded to a longer URL that contains presentation data. The presentation data may include further nested shortened URLs to retrieve digital document components. Condensing techniques for transferring both presentation and location data further reduce transmission size. The combined retrieved data defines the content and presentation of a generated digital document.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of co-pending U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 15/427,463 filed Feb. 8, 2017 entitled “Generating Rich DigitalDocuments From Limited Instructional Data”, the entire contents of whichare hereby incorporated by reference.

BACKGROUND Technical Field

This application relates to generating digital documents from limiteddata.

Background Information

Digital documents based on markup languages, especially web pages basedon HyperText Markup Language (HTML) markup language, have become widelyaccessible and utilized. Their richly styled and visual information maybe viewed on a variety of computing devices, including smartphones, withbrowser software.

Smartphones also receive text messages automatically with commonlyinstalled messaging software, and little effort is required to viewthem. Most messaging applications can also forward a hyperlink embeddedin a text message, to enable viewing of HTML pages in a separate browserprogram.

Cellular network service providers developed the global text messagingservice called Short Message Service (SMS) before TCP/IP-based Internetconnections were possible with smartphones. Due to technologyconstraints, an SMS message is limited to 160 characters of text. But itbecame ubiquitous since it was installed on every cellular phone.

Various text compression techniques like GZIP or Base85 encoding mayreduce a URL, depending on its length, to less than the message payloadof an SMS message.

Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) was created to send messages thatinclude multimedia content over cellular networks. An MMS can includemore text than an SMS, as well as images and even short video. Thepractical limit on content is approximately 300 kB. A significantdrawback of an MMS compared to a web page, however, is lack of layoutand display control. MMS messages are also much more expensive than SMS,and the recipient may not want to bear part of the cost.

A “shortened URL” is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,957,224 to Megiddo etal. that reduces the characters required to express a standard HTML pageUniform Resource Locator (URL). A unique pre-assigned key, or shortcode, is bundled in a URL that calls a shortened URL translating serverwhen activated. The shortened URL easily fits within a text message,e-mail, or Twitter “tweet” message for transfer to others. When themessage is viewed and the shortened URL activated, the fully qualifiedlong form of the URL of the desired web page is transferred to the webbrowser software running on the message-receiving device, which thenretrieves and displays the web page. The translation function performedby the shortened URL server is similar to the exchange of an IP addressfor the domain name by a domain name server.

“Instant Messenger” or IM services have also been developed tofacilitate person-to-person communication. These do not utilize theShort Message Service network, so they avoid any such cost. Theirmessages are transported by the Internet network service of the device'scarrier. IM services can provide voice and video calls, and can sendphotos, like an MMS, and web page links, like SMS. They are compatiblewith standard SMS messaging, but they do not interoperate with eachother.

Twitter, Inc. has offered its popular online service where users postand interact with text messages, called “tweets”. Registered users canpost tweets, but those who are unregistered can only read them. Usersaccess Twitter through its website interface, SMS message, or a mobiledevice application.

Recent versions of Apple Computer's iOS mobile operating system includean iMessage messaging application that can extract a certain Open Graphtag in a source page specified by a URL. The tags may include text orimages from the source page that are then displayed in the messagingapplication.

A corollary problem for a digital document that is generated at thereceiving end of a transmission is maintaining faithfulness to itsintended content and appearance. The Portable Document Format (PDF) fileformat, created by the founders of Adobe Systems, Inc., presentsdocuments in a manner independent of application software, hardware andoperating systems. A PDF file may sometimes include compressedcomponents that reduce the original file size. Such a PDF document,however, is still far too large for direct transmission by textmessaging.

Composing a document described by a markup language, such as HTML, alsomaintains reasonable faithfulness to content and appearance. The HTMLfile, like the Adobe PDF file, provides instructional data to viewersoftware, a browser for the former, Adobe Reader software for thelatter. The size of the HTML and associated files, however, is also fartoo large for direct transmission by text messaging.

U.S. Pat. No. 8,793,571 by James Warner, entitled “System and Method forRepeat Viewing Components of Digital Documents and Determining ViewerContext” (the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated byreference), describes techniques for locating elements of a source webpage without the need to download the entire page, such as by thestructure of a web page standardized in a Document Object Model, whichis implemented in web browser software, to dynamically identify adesired component of a source document.

SUMMARY

A viewer must exert both recall and effort proactively to locate andconsume a rich digital document such as a web page. Conversely, thequantity of information and the presentation qualities of a textmessage, which is more effortless to receive, are extremely limited.Neither existing browser nor text messaging software can achieve thebenefits of the other. Both senders and recipients of digital documentscan benefit from a combination of both benefits—a rich digital documentthat can be sent with only limited data such as a text message.

In particular, it is possible to send a message that enables assembly ofa rich digital document on the receiving device. It is also possible toreduce the instruction data that must be transmitted to complete suchassembly to a certain minimal amount. In addition, the components of theassembly may be individually secured and displayed. Other purposes willbe evident from the discussion that follows.

Described herein are a method and system for generating a digitaldocument on a receiving mobile device from limited data that istransmitted to the device. Such limited data may be, but is not requiredto be, sent in a single text message.

Creation of such a message so qualifying for such processing may consistof the following steps:

First, a shortened URL is created that specifies an expanded URL of asource web page or object where a component web element is located.

Second, a “locator string” is assembled that includes the shortened URLfor the said source and other locator data attributes for finding andretrieving the target element. The target element may be specified andlocated using the techniques described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,793,571 toWarner entitled “System and Method for Repeat Viewing Components ofDigital Documents and Determining Viewer Context” (incorporated byreference herein) although other techniques are possible. The locatorstring is then appended to a URL of a shortened URL translating serverthat can expand a shortened URL into the full locator string.

Third, the so constructed URL is then shortened to create a shortenedURL for the locator string.

Fourth, the shortened URL for the locator string is embedded in a“presentation data string”. The presentation data string may include, ina pre-determined pattern intended to achieve additional datacompression, presentation attributes that, optionally, may be used tospecify the layout, style, and additional content of the screen that isdisplayed to the viewer.

Finally, a URL is similarly constructed of the presentation data stringand then itself shortened to create an initiating shortened URL. Thetextual message is assembled with the initiating shortened URL and,optionally, a database query term separate from the shortened URL andsent to the receiving device by a messaging service so capable ofdelivering.

Document assembly and display may consist of the following steps:

First, a qualifying message received by a message service running on thereceiving device is submitted to an assembly application.

Second, the assembly application expands the shortened URL contained inthe qualifying message and the nested shortened URLs embedded insuccessive URLs.

Third, the assembly application retrieves the target elements and otherdocument components specified by the expanded URLs.

Fourth, the assembly application applies the presentation dataoptionally included in the expanded URLs to a pre-defined documentstructure template to set stylistic attributes and other data.

Fifth, the assembly application generates the rich digital document byassembling the desired components and displaying them according to thetemplate, stylistic attributes, and other data.

In some implementations, the document assembly process may furtherleverage a filtering service to control access to document elements.This feature may be used to implement security measures, or otherconditions on accessing the constructed page.

The resulting rich display: 1) is initiated by the sender, 2) isassembled and displayed in the receiving device application rather thanlinking out to the browser, 3) is faithful to its intended content andappearance, 4) may include access controls, 5) may include informationneeded to request updates or retransmission, and 6) the entire messagedownload is much more efficient than downloading the comparable webpages and easier for the recipient to view.

It should be understood that this summary is provided to introduce aselection of concepts in a simplified form that are further describedbelow in the Detailed Description of an Illustrative Embodiment. ThisSummary is thus not intended to identify key features or essentialfeatures of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to identifykey features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor isit intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimedsubject matter. It is intended that only the claims which follow definethe scope of legal protection sought herein.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The description below refers to the accompanying drawings, of which:

FIG. 1 shows a diagram of a process, including hardware and softwarecomponents, for generating a rich digital document from a shortened URL.

FIG. 2 shows nested shortened URLs embedded in the SMS message, thePresentation data and the Element Locator data.

FIGS. 3A and 3B show the Start of the process of display with an SMSmessage and its screen shot and the screen shot of an Output of thefinished display.

FIGS. 4A and 4B show a comparison of the display of an outlined webelement by a mobile web browser and the assembled message showing thesame outlined web element with the identical styles applied.

FIG. 5 shows a diagram of the Presentation data and Locator dataexpansion process.

FIG. 6 shows a diagram of the Message assembly process.

FIG. 7 shows a diagram of Document component security and displaycontrol.

The foregoing will be apparent from the following more particulardescription of example embodiments of the invention, as illustrated inthe accompanying drawings in which like reference characters refer tothe same parts throughout the different views. The drawings are notnecessarily to scale, emphasis instead being place on illustratingembodiments of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF AN ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENT

A description of example embodiments of the invention follows.

A method and system for generating a digital document on a receivingmobile device from a minimum of received instructional data isdisclosed. Rich digital documents cannot be “pushed” to a recipientdevice using prior techniques. Text messaging can “push” a message, butthat is typically limited in size. Many mobile messaging services have alimit of 160 or fewer characters of text; in the case of Twitter,messages are limited to 140 characters.

Senders of many types of text messages would benefit from being able tosend a text message that consists of a rich digital document. Recipientswould benefit from text messages that contain more information, are moreattractively presented, and enable more interaction opportunities.

Methods and systems to transmit sufficient data to generate a desiredrich digital document using as little instructional data as can fit inthe message payload capacity of a text message contain several aspects:

1. Foregoing transmission of the voluminous, complete specification of adesired digital document, only instructional data about how to locatethe data needed to assemble and present the document is transmitted.

2. An assembly application running on the recipient device performsdocument assembly and applying presentation attributes.

3. Web elements are downloaded from remote web sources and assembled onthe receiving device.

4. A specific document template format provides a display layout that isless flexible than coding an HTML page but which reduces the number ofattributes that must be specified.

5. Short URLs are used, not merely as web URL pointers, but to transportstrings of instructional data used for presentation attributespecification and to locate the web elements and other resources to bedisplayed.

6. Successive expansion of shortened URLs enables a presentation datastring to be assembled on the transmit side and deconstructed on thereceive side.

7. Additional interaction features are enabled in the generated documentthan are possible with the limitations of a text message.

8. Document componentization enables access control or substitutionindependent of the initial message specification.

It should be noted that any messaging service in addition to SMS thatcan interoperate with the embodiment can deliver the instructional datato generate such rich digital documents. The present embodiment does notrequire, but only enables, a messaging service payload so limited.

One overall method of generating a rich document consists of receiving amessage that contains limited instructional data for presenting adesired rich digital document, expanding a short URL that it includes,extracting from the expanded URL both the presentation data and theshort URLs of location data for any component elements, expanding thelocation short URLs that may be so contained, further extracting theshort URL of the source document, retrieving such component elementsusing the remaining locator data, assembling a desired rich digitaldocument of such data, and displaying the so generated document using abrowser run-time capability included in the mobile device operatingsystem.

Instructional Data Transmission

The WorldWideWeb consortium standards enable display of digitaldocuments of considerable display flexibility using browser software.They suffer some loss of reproduction fidelity, particularly of layoutappearance on mobile screens, and they demand highly detailedprogramming syntax. Still the total size of the files that describe asingle web page are far too large to transmit in a text message.

A sender can send a URL in a message which results in display of thelinked web page in a device's browser program, without sending theunderlying HTML and other files. Yet sending even a small messagecontaining HTML code will exceed SMS capacity.

As a result, the disclosed invention abandons the common approach ofsending a completed pre-formed document. Instead, it sends only metadatacontaining instructions (referred to herein as “instructional data”) forhow to assemble the document from components obtained separately by therecipient device and to present the so assembled document.

Assembly Application

An assembly application consists of program code running on thereceiving device. Either automatically or by user-initiated action, itreceives a message from a messaging service running on the receivingdevice, detects the message has content for it to process, and extractsan initiating shortened URL code. It proceeds to expand the shortenedURL, which is typically further nested in sequential shortened URLs,extract the presentation data, and retrieve the document components. Itassembles the components and applies the presentation data to thedocument template to complete generation of the desired rich digitaldocument and displays it using a browser run-time capability included inthe mobile device operating system.

Web Elements Downloaded

Text messages are by nature condensed and specific. Displaying only aweb page element with specific information matches the character of ashort textual message and the expectations of recipients. The prior artof attaching a full page with often irrelevant, distracting, and/orinappropriate content may require additional effort to navigate. Therecipient may not even view the page because the link to it must beconsciously activated. The transport load of web elements instead of theentire web page typically may be a much lighter load, consume less ofthe recipient's data plan allotment, and require less time.

A further benefit of only downloading a specified web element as acomponent of the desired digital document is that it reduces andsimplifies content management. Instead of requiring updates to a secondsource of information, re-using elements from a web page enable that webpage as an authoritative source.

Template

The embodiments described herein are not a page description language,such as HTML or like PDF. Instead, they use a template of pre-defineddigital document objects that can adjust display attributes according tovalues supplied in a standardized string, called the “presentation datastring”.

The template pre-defines a document structure that trades the displayflexibility of PDF or HTML for a less flexible layout but with a highlyconcise description of display attributes. Various templates withdifferent document structures may be utilized.

The template document objects may be standard Document Object Modelobjects. They are arranged for display to enable flexible layout. Oneembodiment for Android devices, for example, may contain one or more ofImageView, WebView, and TextView elements arranged in TableLayout,RelativeLayout, or LinearLayout structures in an eXtensible MarkupLanguage (XML) display definition of a template.

Those template document objects may adapt their size and locationidentically to the way they adapt on a so-called “dynamic web page”. Thetechnique of structuring dynamic web pages may make web content presentmore acceptably on devices with different size screens.

Each object of the template may have numerous attributes that can bespecified. These can vary the size, background color, text, textualstyle and color, or alignment of the display of the object. For documentcomponents displayed in such objects, a shortened URL of the locatordata for retrieving such component is specified.

Each of these attributes is specified at a precise sequential locationin the presentation data string. Such location is specificallydetermined to provide a tradeoff between display flexibility and a moreeconomical attribute description. In one example, the desired richdocument will display a title and a textual footer, with the titleobject background color specified at the beginning of the presentationdata string and the style of the footer text specified at the end.Alternatively, JSON strings may be utilized but that requires thepresentation data string to include key names. This unnecessarilyinflates the string length if the positions of attributes in the stringis known and maintained.

The presentation data string, in one embodiment, consists of valuesseparated by a “separator character”, each value corresponding to thedesired value for the attribute at each specific location.

An example form of a template and presentation data string, using the“|” character as a separator of attributes with predetermined functions,could be:

AA∥svndi57∥6urgjug|FFFFFF . . .

This presentation data assigns “AA” as an ID, recognizing the nextsequential “|” character as the termination of the attribute value. TheID field can be used for whatever the sender of the document wants. Inone example, the ID field can be specific to a particular message and/ordocument. In another example, the ID field may be used to distinguishtemplates used for different notifications; the ID field can also be anidentifier for a service's client. It is meant to be flexibly appliedand is not determinative about the particular document contents ordisplay.

The lack of a value for the second attribute (as indicated by theimmediately following sequential “|”) may assign a default value to theTitle object as a background color.

The third attribute, the short URL “svndi57”, is to be expanded tolocator data. In one example, the locator data may expand to a longerURL for a document element, such as an image, that can be retrievedindependently from retrieving an entire source page. For example, thelocator data may retrieve the image via an IMG element's SRC attribute.However, the locator data may be used in other ways. As a secondexample, the locator data, after expansion, may specify a longercharacter string that includes a URL for a source web page; the same oryet other locator data may be further expanded to obtain information forhow to extract the element from the source web page. In this example,the further information might specify one or more HMTL tags in thesource page, such a table (<table>) tag, paragraph (<p>) tag, unorderedlist <ul> or some other tag to identify the element. The second examplemay use the techniques described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,793,571 referencedabove to locate such an element.

The fourth attribute is another short URL for locator data for thetopmost web element; none is specified since the value is blank. Thefifth attribute is yet another short URL for still other locator data,that being for the lowermost web element and is specified as “6urbjug”.This shortened URL will be expanded in the element location step. Thesixth attribute is used as the color for the screen background; “FFFFFF”signifies it should be white.

Numerous techniques may be used to specify, with a minimal number ofcharacters preferred, various attributes of the template documentobjects. So, for example, the default, if no value is specified, mayindicate the most likely value that would be desired.

Another technique may assign a single letter in the presentation datastring to represent a longer attribute, such as a seven-characterhexadecimal color; so “F” would signify “#FFFFFF” or “white”. Similarly,“S” may signify that the attribute color is the same as another relatedelement. A single character can also be a code for the name of aresource image file.

An object of the template can be a web element that is retrieved at thetime of document assembly. As a result, the information it displaysshould be the most current available from that source.

The template can be modified, saved and re-used for additional messages.

Unique Short URL Use

These embodiments extend the original purpose of shortened URLs fromlinking to a web page to a unique new use for passing presentation andelement locator data in the expanded URL. Shortened URLs are used in twodifferent unique ways: 1) as a link to a web element that is a componentor child element of the entire parent web page and 2) as a moreefficient string compression mechanism for transmitting individual webelement and presentation data for constructing and styling a document onthe receiving device. The locator data for an individual web elementtypically exceeds SMS message capacity. So the instructional data thatincludes component locator data plus presentation data for a documentfar exceeds SMS message capacity. Applying various text compressiontechniques to the instructional data still exceeds SMS capacity.Therefore, the required data compression is achieved by applying ashortened URL for each component's locator data and another for thedigital document presentation data.

Such shortened URLs may be re-used by a sender for many such messages.In order to incorporate personalized data, such as the recipient's name,or information specific to an individual message, such as a flightnumber, product SKU or an appointment time, a string of characters isappended to the Element locator data, either as another short URL or inplain text depending on the length. The assembly program attaches thesecharacters to the Element source page URL, when it is expanded, to forma database query that will retrieve the specific data for incorporationin the desired digital document. As an example, a database query may bedesired for flight #2605. The message sent to the receiving device whichis expanded by the method disclosed would reveal Element locator data:|cqinl9r|American Airlines|2|2∥|299|344|3∥∥∥∥∥flight:2605|. The text“flight:2605” is query data for a database search. The assembly programwould combine the Element source page URL and the query data containedin the Element locator data and submit a database query with a form like

-   -   http://www.aa/com/?flight=2605        to obtain additional data which is inserted in the digital        document.

Note that successful forwarding of a message is more reliable if it issent in a common format, for example, SMS. Therefore, an additionalbenefit using shortened URLs, with or without database queries, is toencourage and enable forwarding of messages, which is particularlybeneficial for messages, for example, of a promotional nature.

Interaction

SMS messages limit interaction between sender and recipient to reply orlinking to a web page. It is possible to signal the assembly applicationto provide additional means of interaction. The content and presentationof the generated document may be changed as a result of hiding ordisplaying different document components and retrieving and presentingdifferent web elements. Additional recipient actions may be presented,such as refreshing data presented in the document, transferringcommunications to different means of interaction, such as a voice callor chat capability, or further transmitting the initial instructionaldata. The assembly application may also communicate further with thedocument component server(s) or other server(s).

Document Componentization and Security

The present disclosure teaches the assembly of a rich digital documenton a device from a received message that includes necessaryinstructional data. The assembly is independent of the messaging servicethat delivers the instructional data. Components to be assembled areretrieved from one or more remote web sources as specified by thelocator data extracted from the expanded instructional data. Furthercommunication between such sources and the assembly application mayretrieve additional or changed components.

This componentization of the document enables control of the componentsindependently. Whether they are concealed or displayed and the style oftheir presentation can result from recipient actions, access controls,and events external to the document.

Recipient actions can cause a component to be hidden or displayedaccording to the context of the recipient, the device, or the contentsimply by changing a visibility attribute in the displayed document.Exercise of a call-to-action by the recipient can similarly cause hidingor display of various components or retrieval of additional componentsof the document. For example, pressing a Chat button, which may beincluded in the displayed document by the specification of thecorresponding file name in the specified location in the presentationdata string, can execute chat client software or connect to an app thatuses a remote Artificial Intelligence (AI) program to provide anautomated, interactive conversation. Pressing a Help button, in anotherscenario, can replace some components of the document with others.

Access controls at the web source server can be applied to documentcomponents as they are used at present for web pages. One common controlmay be to restrict access to a web page by requiring passwordsubmission. Another control directs a web browser requesting a web pageat a URL, for example, to either the full-screen version or the mobileversion of the page depending on the device the browser is running on.Also, once downloaded to the web browser, many web pages displaydifferent content depending on cookies found on the display device, andoften make further changes based on the viewer's subsequent actions withthe page.

Because each component is individually retrieved, access controls on thedelivery and presentation of each can be exercised individually at itssource. This embodiment, optionally, can utilize a filtering server, webserver security, or other means that control access to the expansion ofthe shortened URL or substitutes a different web element.

An additional access control may optionally require authentication ofthe recipient before a component is downloaded to the assemblyapplication. Authentication of the sender may also protect the recipientfrom clicking a link in a malevolent message with a spoofed sender. Saidauthentication could be provided by commonly available enterprisedirectories or popular user authentication sign-in capabilities. Thus,this embodiment extends server-level controls for some suchcustomization, personalization or security functions to the componentsof the page just like web pages are controlled.

A few cases where control of a specified component may be desirableinclude: 1) the message recipient may be associated with different groupattributes, e.g., subscribers of a service or not, 2) the retrieval maybe re-directed to a different element due to is unavailability or otherconditions, 3) an individual should receive some information differentfrom a group, e.g., her connecting flight information, 4) accesscontrols may block delivery of a component of a document according todifferent levels of security based on device attributes, recipientresponses to challenges, location of the device, etc.

Finally, events external to the document displayed can control or changecomponent display. The assembly program can react to events on thereceiving device such as notifications from alarms or calendar events.By monitoring the results of a remote data source, the assembly programcan respond to a change in a remote variable, such as a change in score,status or condition, and change the displayed document.

An Example Embodiment

Referring now to FIG. 1, this shows one example embodiment of the systemcomponents and an overall method of generating a rich document. An SMSserver 100 sends an SMS message 110 with the initial instructional dataas a short URL to an SMS client 130 on a receiving device 120. The SMSclient software 130 receives an SMS message from the SMS server 100 viaan appropriate communication link (which is typically a cellular, WiFi,and/or other wireless or wired link), and then passes the instructionaldata 140 to an assembly application 150 running on the receiving device120. The assembly application 150 sends the short URL received in theinstructional data to a short URL translation server 170. The URLtranslation server expands the short URL and returns an expanded URL180, which contains the presentation data, back to the assemblyapplication 150. The assembly application 150 then repeatedly sendsadditional short URLs that may be embedded in the presentation data, andother short URLs that may be embedded in element locator data (which inturn was embedded in the presentation data), to the translation server170 for expansion. It should be understood that the translation server170 used in this step may be the same or a different translation serveras used in the initial translation step. The assembly application 150extracts 190 the presentation data 200. The assembly application 150then selects the document template 220 for the desired document. If acomponent of the desired rich document is an element of a web source240, the assembly application 150 requests it 230 using the locatordata. The request 230 may be made directly to one or more web sources240; optionally, a filtering server 810 (as shown and discussed below inconnection with FIG. 7) may control access to the element and may grantaccess or deny it at 820. If access is granted, the web source 240provides access to the web element 250 and downloads it 260 to theassembly application 150. The assembly application 150 combines the webelement(s) 250, the presentation data 220 and the document template 230to generate a unified document 270. The unified document 270 may then bepresented on a display (not shown) such as by a browser run-time 155running on the receiving device 120.

The assembly application 150 may be delivered to the receiving device120 in any number of ways, for example, via a prior download from anapplication program source such as Google™ Play or Apple™ iTunes, viaanother distribution server, or via on demand delivery such as GoogleAndriod Instant Apps.

FIG. 2 shows an example of nesting the shortened URLs in a SMS message,the Presentation data and the Element Locator data. This example is foran airline website that displays mobile boarding pass information forAmerican Airlines. An initial shortened code 300 is expanded to thePresentation data 310. That includes a nested shortened code that isexpanded to the Element Locator data 320 which, in turn, includes is anested shortened code pointing to an Element source page URL 330 for theweb element referring to boarding pass information.

In some implementations, the random short code 300 can be replaced by aparticular “tag”, such as “American Airlines flight 2605”, that may bemore understandable to a viewer. That will allow an SMS with a messagelike:

“Special update for you. Click to view:

http://example.aa/com/American Airlines flight 2605”

to cause the same “American Airlines flight 2605” message to allpassengers on that flight. Each time the message is sent (each day, eachupdate before takeoff, each flight segment, etc.) that message thenpicks up whatever the latest data is from the flight status database.

It is also possible to change the document component that tag causes tobe displayed. For example, if the flight is near landing when themessage is viewed, the short URL embedded in the presentation data cancause the flight status table of information to change to the baggagelocation information, and an image can change from a plane to acarousel.

FIG. 3A shows a screen shot of a message displayed by the SMS clientsoftware 130 of the receiving device. The SMS message 110 includes theinitiating short URL 400. When the SMS message 110 is received on thereceiving device and displayed by SMS client software 130, the SMSmessage may automatically initiate processing by the assemblyapplication 150, or the user can click the link that includes theshortened URL. Further processing by the assembly application 150starting with expansion of the shortened URL 400 to result in the output430 of the desired unified digital document 270 as shown in FIG. 3B.

Optionally, a message displayed by the disclosure may include a buttonbar 440 that may be displayed in various ways, placements and forms. Thebutton bar 440 provides one or more “call to action” buttons thatsimplify follow-on actions, requests for information, or support needs.A “click-to-call” button 450 may prepare the embedded phone applicationwith a telephone number to call for further information, help ortransactions. An “OK” button 460 can dismiss and delete the message orprovide a context menu of additional options. Many other types ofbuttons may be inserted that initiate or conclude transactions orconnect to additional information sources from web landing pages tochatbots that can answer questions in a conversational style.Furthermore, a call-to-action may be expressed as some other form than abutton, such as a link, a clickable image, etc. as found on standard webpages.

FIGS. 4A and 4B illustrate the faithful presentation of the receiveddocument component compared to the display of the same document objectin the original web source page. An original mobile web page displayedin a browser 500 can be scrolled to reveal further content 510. A webelement 520 has been chosen from that page 500 to be displayed in therich digital document that is to be delivered by methods describedherein. FIG. 4B illustrates a portion of that element 530 has beendisplayed in the assembled message. The rendering of the styles of thesource element is identical because the style specifications of theoriginal web page are applied without modification in the delivereddocument. In one implementation, the corresponding style sheets, such asCascading Style Sheets (CSS) are also downloaded from the source pagewith the web element. In a different implementation, different stylescould be applied by changing the style attributes applied, if sodesired.

FIG. 5 shows one implementation of of the Presentation data and Locatordata expansion process. The assembly application 150 running on areceiving device 120 sends shortened URLs to the Short URL TranslationServer 170 repeatedly. Multiple nested applications of the Short URL areused as a data compression method to repeatedly expand the instructionaldata as needed to assemble the desired rich digital document. In a firststep 610, the shortened URL embedded in the SMS message is expanded bythe Short URL Translation Server 170, which returns the Presentationdata at step 630. Locator shortened URLs embedded in that arere-submitted in step 640 to the Translation Server for expansion to theElement locator data at 650. The expanded Element locator data includesthe Element Locator shortened URL for the source page of the documentcomponent. That is again submitted in step 660 to the Translation Serverfor expansion to the Element source page URL at 670.

FIG. 6 shows one implementation of a Message assembly process. Aftercompleting the Presentation and Locator expansion process of FIG. 5,receiving device 120, using the assembly application 150, accesses WebSource 240 at step 710. Said source page could include an Element sourcepage URL; step 710 may be the result of a database query or a web pagethat is generated by a search query. The desired web element 250 isretrieved at step 720 using the expanded locator data 740. The assemblyapplication applies in step 750, the expanded presentation data embeddedin the presentation data 770 to the document template 220. In step 265it then assembles the web element components 250 and the documenttemplate 220 into a unified document 270 that is displayed 280 by thebrowser run-time 155 on the Receiving device 120.

FIG. 7 shows a document component security and display control process.The message assembly process may be altered by controlling of thecontent of the desired rich digital document 270. Access to componentsmay be controlled for security measures, commercial conditions, or otherconditions. In a first step 800, receiving device 120, using theassembly application 150, attempts to access Web Source 240. In thisembodiment a filtering server 810 controls access to the Web element250. Applying business logic or access rules, in step 820 denies accessto element 250 and may deliver instead a substitute element 840. Thedisplay assembly step 280 combines the substitute element 820 and thedocument template 220 and any other components into the Unified document270.

In prior art, the shortened URL has been utilized to transmit data forvarious particular purposes. The embodiments described herein, incontrast, utilize the shortened URL two different unique ways: 1) as ashorter pointer to the data needed to locate an element of a web page,not to the entire web page, and 2) as a more efficient compressionmechanism to transmit instructional data, including both said locatordata for an individual web element and presentation data forconstructing and styling a document on the receiving device.

While the above has particularly shown and described example embodimentsof the invention, it will be understood by those skilled in the art thatvarious changes in form and details may be made therein withoutdeparting from the scope of the invention as encompassed only by theappended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for generating a digital document on a receiving device comprising: receiving initial instructional data that contains at least a first short code; forwarding the first short code to a short code translation server to obtain a first longer character sequence; wherein a part of the first longer character sequence contains presentation data that defines at least one aspect of a presentation of the digital document; wherein another part of the first longer character sequence contains a second short code delineated by separation characters; forwarding the second short code to the short code translation server to obtain a second longer character sequence; wherein the second longer character sequence contains locator data for locating a web element; retrieving the web element; generating the digital document by applying the web element and a presentation section of the presentation data to a pre-defined template form, with the pre-defined template form providing structure to the digital document; and presenting the digital document on the receiving device.
 2. (canceled)
 3. The method of claim 1 wherein the locator data is for directly locating a web element independent of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for a source page for the web element.
 4. (canceled)
 5. (canceled)
 6. The method of claim 1 wherein one of the first or the second longer character sequence includes query data, and the method additionally comprises: initiating a search or a database query using the query data and the locator data to obtain additional data; and wherein the step of generating the digital document also applies the additional data thereby obtained to the pre-defined template form.
 7. The method of claim 1 wherein an assembly application program running on the receiving device executes one or more of the method steps.
 8. The method of claim 1 wherein the initial instructional data is received by a Short Message Service (SMS), or Twitter messaging service.
 9. The method of claim 1 wherein the digital document has one or more components that provide further interaction, comprising: refreshing data presented, concealing or disclosing different document components, retrieving and presenting different web elements, transferring communications to different means of interaction, such as a voice call, chat service, or chatbot, further transmitting the initial instructional data or a part of the longer character sequence that derives from it, or further communicating with document component server(s) or other server(s).
 10. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of generating the digital document further controls whether data presented or components thereof are concealed or disclosed, and the step of presenting the digital document is further determined by actions taken by the user, by access controls that block delivery or provide substitute data, or by events external to the message, such as alarms, calendar notifications, or changes of remote events.
 11. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of generating the digital document further applies values of presentation attributes to the pre-defined form that are determined by actions taken by the user, by access controls on the data, or by external events, such as alarms, calendar notifications, or changes of remote events.
 12. An apparatus for generating a digital document comprising: one or more communication interfaces; a display; and a processor, for executing program code, the program code for: receiving initial instructional data that contains at least a first short code from one of the communication interfaces; sending the first short code to a short code translation server over one of the communication interfaces; receiving a first longer character sequence from the short code translation server over one of the communication interfaces, where a part of the first longer character sequence contains presentation data that defines at least one aspect of a presentation of the digital document; wherein another part of the first longer character sequence contains a second short code delineated by separation characters; forwarding the second short code to the short code translation server over one of the communication interfaces; receiving a second longer character sequence over one of the communication interfaces, to obtain locator data for locating a document element; retrieving the document element using the locator data; locating a pre-defined template that provides structure for the digital document; generating the digital document by applying the document element and a presentation section of the presentation data to the pre-defined template; and presenting the digital document on the display.
 13. (canceled)
 14. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the locator data is for directly locating the document element independent of a URL for a source page for the document element.
 15. (canceled)
 16. (canceled)
 17. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the one of the first or second longer character sequence includes query data, and the program code is further for: initiating a search or database query using the query data and the locator data to obtain additional data; and generating the digital document by also applying the additional data obtained to the pre-defined template.
 18. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the program code is an assembly application program running on the receiving device.
 19. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the initial instructional data is received by a Short Message Service (SMS) or Twitter messaging service.
 20. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the digital document has one or more components that provide further interaction, comprising: refreshing data presented, concealing or disclosing different document components, retrieving and presenting different web elements, transferring communications to different means of interaction, such as a voice call, chat service, or chatbot, further transmitting the initial instructional data or a part of the longer character sequence that derives from it, or further communicating with document component server(s) or other server(s).
 21. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein program code for generating the digital document is further for controlling whether data presented or components thereof are concealed or disclosed, and presenting the digital document is further determined by actions taken by the user, by access controls that block delivery or provide substitute data, or by events external to the message, such as alarms, calendar notifications, or changes of remote events.
 22. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the program code for generating the digital document is further for applying values of presentation attributes to the pre-defined form that are determined by actions taken by the user, by access controls on the data, or by external events, such as alarms, calendar notifications, or changes of remote events.
 23. An apparatus for displaying a digital document comprising: an interface for interactively displaying components of the digital document and accepting user input; and a processor for executing program code to receive a character string and to assemble the digital document according to information in the character string, the program code for: locating a first short code in the character string; forwarding said first short code to a short code translation server to expand said first short code; receiving an expanded character string from said short code translation server; separating characters from the expanded character string to identify presentation data; when the expanded character string includes at least one image identifier, retrieving one or more image elements using location data associated with the at least one image identifier; applying the presentation data to set presentation attributes of the document using layout and/or structure information in a template accessible to the program code; identifying and extracting a second short code from the expanded character string to identify one or more additional document components, the second short code delineated in the expanded character string by a pair of separation characters; expanding said second short code in the presentation data using the short code translator server to expose an additional expanded character string; separating portions of the additional expanded character string which contain component locator data; using the component locator data to locate one or more web elements; retrieving the one or more web elements using the component locator data, the one or more web elements for use as one or more document components; and assembling the digital document using the assembly application from the template, the presentation data, and the one or more document components thus retrieved.
 24. The method of claim 1 additionally wherein the locator data includes a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for a source web page that contains the web element, and wherein the locator data further includes additional data for selecting the web element from the source web page.
 25. The apparatus of claim 12 additionally wherein the locator data includes a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for a source web page that contains the web element, and wherein the locator data further includes additional data for selecting the web element from the source web page.
 26. The apparatus of claim 23 wherein the component locator data includes a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for a source web page that contains at least one web element, and wherein the locator data further includes additional data for selecting the at least one document component from the source web page. 